September Monthly Challenge

This colorful and graphic inspiration by designer Eugene Seguy will be fun to delve into this month! Gather together your bug inspired beads and pendants. Dragonflies, butterflies, moths, beetles and cicadas were incredibly popular motifs in Art Nouveau and Art Deco designs that influenced Seguy.

Will you temper the bright color palette with accents of black? Maybe pull in some of those graphic lines with dark steel wire? Grab some brass filigree to give a nod to the Art Nouveau time period paired together with an insect focal bead and bright Czech glass. You can focus on a limited color palette like the individual images above or pick and choose your favorite colors featured in the designs. I can’t wait to see the directions you explore this month.

What is the Monthly Challenge?

Every month we challenge our readers to create jewelry inspired by the featured artwork. You have until the end of the month to share your work and then we pick two winners to receive beads and jewelry-making supplies from our sponsors. Our only rule? You must use at least one art bead in your piece!

About the Art & Artist:

Eugene Seguy (1890-1985) had two careers. One as a dedicated entomologist and the other as a bold pattern designer. His in-depth study of insects were transformed into amazing designs during the art periods of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. His later work is more influenced by Art Deco motifs with more abstract and linear patterns. He created 11 portfolios of his designs. His portfolios made using the pochoir technique, a unique type of hand-stenciling used to produce fine prints in limited editions. Some of the prints could have up to 100 stencils to produce each part of the design.

Not much is known about this mysterious scientist and designer. He worked for the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

Mary Harding Jewelry

Firefly Design Studio

Summer Wind Art

Humblebeads

New Submission Policies!

Create Your Account:

Take a minute to create your account on the site right here. I recommend using your full name or business name for your user name.

After you create your account, add your profile photo and bio.

(If you have a long lost WordPress account you may need to reset your password.)

Entering the Monthly Challenge:

When you are ready to add your monthly entry go the submit page. You’ll need to login before you can submit your photo. You can submit photos from your computer or mobile device.

Remember to add your blog or shop link and art bead details to the description.

You can upload two photos for each monthly challenge category (jewelry or beads).

Add your photo to the gallery for the current month.

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How to Enter the Monthly Jewelry Challenge:

Create something using an art bead that fits within our monthly theme. We post the art to be used as your inspiration to create. This challenge is open to jewelry-makers, fiber artists, collage artist, etc. The art bead can be created by you or someone else. The challenge is to inspire those who use art beads and to see all the different ways art beads can be incorporated into your handiwork.An Art Bead must be used in your piece to qualify for the monthly challenge.Upload your photo to our new photo gallery. Include a short description, who created the art beads and a link to your blog or shop, if you have one.Deadline is September 30th.
You may upload two entries per month.

***Beads strung on a chain, by themselves and beads simply added to wire or cord will not be accepted.***<brr

Entries for Bead Artists

Art beads must be created by you and fit the Art Bead Scene’s monthly challenge theme. They can be made for the challenge or ones you have made before. Two entries per month are allowed.

One entry will be picked by the editors each month for a free month of advertising on the Art Bead Scene. Bead entries have to be pinned by the 30th of the month.

Monthly Challenge Winners

• Two prize winner will be selected at random from all pictures posted in our new gallery!

• Winners will be randomly chosen from all the qualifying entries on October 1st.

Perfect Pairings: Designer + Art Bead Artist

• Perfect Pairings focus on both the jewelry designer and the art bead artist.

• Be sure to point out all the art bead artists in your work in the description of the photos when you upload to the new gallery. Links to their website or shop are appreciated. That way we can all find new art beads to love!

• From all the entries during the month, an editor will pick their favorite design to be featured on Friday here on the ABS, so get those entries in soon.

What is an Art Bead?

An art bead is a bead, charm, button or finding made by an independent artist. Art beads are the vision and handiwork of an individual artist. You can read more about art beads here.***A bead that is handmade is not necessarily an art bead. Hill Tribe Silver, Kazuri ceramic beads or lampwork beads made in factories are examples of handmade beads that are not considered art beads.

Beaded beads, stamped metal pendants or wire-wrapped components are not considered art beads for our challenge.***

The owner and editor of the Art Bead Scene, her website is Humblebeads.com. Heather is the author of three jewelry and bead books, Jewelry Designs from Nature, Beautiful Elements and the Bead-making Lab. When she isn’t busy making beads, she is planning her next Bead Cruise adventure or one of her popular retreats. www.humblebeads.com

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